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#298771 - 28/05/2007 05:48 EAC Help Needed
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5546
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
Last month the power supply on my computer died a horrible death, took my video card with it.

New power supply, new video card, and since my faithful old Lite-On CD burner was making bad noises, the guy helping me fix my computer replaced it with a slightly used Samsung CD/DVD burner. It was free, can't complain about that.

Ever since then, my EAC program rips CDs at about 1.8x average speed instead of the Lite-On's 20-25x. EAC shows no error corrections during the rips.

It doesn't seem to be a hardware problem since Nero Express will write CDs at 44x, and AudioCatalyst will rip them at 25-30x. It just seems like EAC isn't happy with the new burner.

I re-ran EACs setup wizard, let it auto-detect and configure itself for the new burner, made no difference.

I downloaded the latest version of EAC, ran the setup wizard again, no difference.

Can any EAC experts offer me ideas on how to get the ripping speed back up to 20-25x like it used to be? Does EAC perhaps just not like CD burners that can also burn DVDs?

tanstaafl.
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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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#298772 - 28/05/2007 14:05 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: tanstaafl.]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
More likely EAC has detected something about the drive that it suspects might compromise rip quality. Open the drive options settings (EAC menu -> Drive options) and select the "Extraction Method" tab. I'm guessing that "Secure mode..." is selected, which is the best one to use if you're wanting to make sure that you get accurate results. If you want to wing it for better speed, try "Fast mode" or "Burst mode". The better option is probably to get yourself a better drive.
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Bitt Faulk

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#298773 - 28/05/2007 18:00 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: wfaulk]
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5546
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
Quote:
The better option is probably to get yourself a better drive.



Yeah, I'd pretty much come to the same conclusion. There seems to be something about this particular drive that EAC doesn't like.

I retested with a known-good CD (one I had extracted/encoded in the past) and got the following results, ripping just the first track:

Secure Mode: 3.2x
Burst Mode: 3.5x
Fast Mode: .5x

For now, all I am ripping is audio books, and AudioCatalyst is acceptable for that.

Plextor has the reputation of making the best drives, but usually at a pretty serious price. I'll shop around for another Lite-On, I have had vey good luck with those, and the folks at HydrogenAudio recommend them (along with Plextor) as being among the best choices.

tanstaafl.
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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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#298774 - 29/05/2007 15:10 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: tanstaafl.]
SE_Sport_Driver
carpal tunnel

Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
Lite ons work great for me. Apparently, BenQ makes some good ones as well.
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Brad B.

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#298775 - 30/05/2007 06:32 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: SE_Sport_Driver]
altman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 3457
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
Plextor's DVD burners work well for audio ripping too.... except it seems that most drives nowadays won't rip some of the protected CDs at all. I was trying to rip Duran Duran's "Astronaut" with EAC (and various other programs) but it wouldn't rip - infinite retries, etc, on both my plextor dvd writer and my Philips dvd writer.

Tried my old external Sony DRU500A, ripped just fine with EAC. Hmmm. Glad I kept it.

Hugo

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#298776 - 30/05/2007 07:37 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: altman]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4174
Loc: Cambridge, England
Quote:
Plextor's DVD burners work well for audio ripping too.... except it seems that most drives nowadays won't rip some of the protected CDs at all. I was trying to rip Duran Duran's "Astronaut" with EAC (and various other programs) but it wouldn't rip - infinite retries, etc, on both my plextor dvd writer and my Philips dvd writer.

Tried my old external Sony DRU500A, ripped just fine with EAC. Hmmm. Glad I kept it.

Hmm, I've got "Astronaut", and don't remember it being that hard to rip... I'd have used cd-paranoia+Plextor, although, if it had proven difficult, the ultimate sanction would be Rio Central (or, cough, a PC Linux build of the Rio Central ripping code). It will rip anything.

Peter

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#298777 - 30/05/2007 11:39 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: altman]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14486
Loc: Canada
Yeah, I have a small assortment of older drives that are specifically kept because they have provided trouble-free rips where newer drives failed.

Cheers

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#298778 - 31/05/2007 12:08 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: mlord]
altman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 3457
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
I was particularly annoyed when EAC removed the "detect TOC automatically" option without so much as a line in the release notes. I guess pressure was applied from somewhere to the author. Still, the internet being the internet, I found the older version easily

Hugo

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#298779 - 31/05/2007 13:06 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: altman]
Attack
addict

Registered: 01/03/2002
Posts: 598
Loc: Florida
Quote:
I was particularly annoyed when EAC removed the "detect TOC automatically" option without so much as a line in the release notes. I guess pressure was applied from somewhere to the author. Still, the internet being the internet, I found the older version easily

Hugo


The author gave his reason for removing this feature on the What's New page.
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Chad

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#298780 - 01/06/2007 01:55 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: Attack]
altman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 3457
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
Ah. I'd not seen that; I guess it's fair enough, but annoying nonetheless. He needs to move to scandinavia obviously

Hugo

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#298781 - 26/06/2007 06:00 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: tanstaafl.]
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5546
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
Quote:
I'll shop around for another Lite-On, I have had vey good luck with those,


OK, I have a new Lite-On CD/DVD burner. EAC runs faster than it did with the other one... but I am still only getting about a 9x burn speed where before I used to get 20 or better.

But now I have a different problem, concerning Nero. The new Lite-On came with nero v7.5. Oh, boy! a newer version Nero. Time to upgrade, right?

I wish I had done some research before installing the 7.5 Nero. The forums I visited seemed to run about 5:1 against it -- the consensus was to stay with v6.6 in one of its many incarnations.

In my ignorance I installed 7.5, and have had nothing but trouble. I wanted to put some .wmv files and some .mov files (from my digital camera) onto CD video so I could play them in my DVD player. I had done this before quite successfully with the old 6.6 software.

The 7.5 software did the transcoding and wrote to the CDs, and they can be played on the DVD player, but the quality is unacceptable: About every 3--5 seconds, the playback "glitches" -- that is, one of the frames is, ummm, I don't know what the word is, but the picture on that one frame is made up of coarse boxes instead of fine pixels.

I uninstalled the 7.5, went back to the 6.6, but now whenever I try to add files to the transcoder list, I get a dialog box about "Fatal error. Installation is corrupted. Re-install Nero." Something like that. Reinstalling it doesn't change anything. I'm guessing that the 7.5 installation over-wrote or changed or did something to a shared DLL file or something, I dunno.

Any ideas where to go from here?

tanstaafl.
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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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#298782 - 26/06/2007 12:23 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: tanstaafl.]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
I don't know what version of Windows you're using or if you have it enabled, but you might want to try "System Restore" (Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->System Restore).
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Bitt Faulk

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#298783 - 29/06/2007 03:42 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: wfaulk]
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5546
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
Quote:
but you might want to try "System Restore"


Hey, for a Linux guy, you're pretty smart, Bitt!

That did the trick! Thanks very much.

tanstaafl.
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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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#298784 - 29/06/2007 11:22 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: tanstaafl.]
JBjorgen
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/01/2002
Posts: 3583
Loc: Columbus, OH
Bitt might take exception to the "Linux guy" moniker. Perhaps "Unix guy" would be more well-received.
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~ John

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#298785 - 29/06/2007 12:07 Re: EAC Help Needed [Re: JBjorgen]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Heh. In his case, I'll take him at his intent.
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Bitt Faulk

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